ANU Below Zero Emissions: Finance, investment and purchasing

This digital workshop (via zoom) provides an opportunity to share your ideas for how the Australian National University (ANU) might reduce emissions from ANU purchasing and investments. The event will kick off with very short presentations to set the scene by:

• Prof Frank Jotzo, ANU Crawford School of Public Policy - Mechanisms for financing emissions reduction activities at ANU
• Bella Himmelreich, ANU Undergraduate student in English and Environmental Science - Decarbonising ANU investments
• Mark Egan, ANU Procurement officer - Adapting procurement to meet GHG reduction goals
• James Dickinson-Hoyle, ANU Master of Climate Change student - Potential for ANU to act as a change agent in food systems

Participants will then be invited to share their ideas for how ANU can achieve this goal (40 mins). All contributors are requested to keep their statements very short and concise to allow a range of people to contribute.

This is a public workshop event and will be recorded. The recording will be made available through the ANU Below Zero website and to those who register using the Registration link above. Please read the Consultation Information Sheet, User Guide and Moderation Guidelines which detail important information and the terms and conditions of engaging with this process.

ANU Below Zero Consultation

In February 2020, ANU called for urgent action to address climate change and committed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to below zero, as soon as possible.

ANU are now undertaking a consultation process around how we can address climate change. Consultation is open from 8 Sept -20 October 2020 and you can participate by:

• Registering for this workshop
• And / or contributing your ideas and build on other people’s ideas via our online idea capturing platform - Ideanote*

*In order to post/save your idea, you will be asked to join ANU Below Zero after hitting the submit button. You can use your ANU ID and password by clicking the Single Sign On (SAML) option.

The consultation has been divided into seven themes. You can also engage on the other themes:

• Energy and Buildings
• Travel
• Behavioural Change
• Reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases
• Integrating Below Zero operations, research & teaching
• Leadership and targets

Background on finance, investments and purchasing

Financing emissions reductions

Many emissions reductions activities will deliver long-term cost savings to ANU, for example by reducing energy costs. Nevertheless, many will require start-up capital at a time when COVID-19 has placed significant constraints on ANU budgets. However, there are a range of alternative sources of finance that can help ANU reduce operating costs and emissions at the same time. These could include mechanisms such as climate bonds, solar leasing, energy efficiency loans or community solar investment.

Purchasing

In order to account for all the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by our activities, ANU would need to calculate and offset emissions from the manufacture of all goods and services that we are responsible for via our value chain (i.e. what we purchase). These indirect greenhouse gas emissions (called scope 3 emissions) are outside our direct control. To date we haven’t collected data on these emissions.

Approaches could include calculating and reporting emissions from purchased goods and services, establishing procurement guidelines to select products and services with lower carbon intensity and demonstrating leadership by engaging with key suppliers to ensure that they are taking action to reduce their emissions.

Investments

ANU seeks to grow and protect its financial assets to provide a stable financial environment and operate effectively. The University has a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) policy in place to govern these investments. This policy has contributed to reductions in emissions intensity for the ANU equity investment portfolio in comparison with benchmark portfolios. In February 2020, the ANU Council resolved that ANU will be “further reducing the emissions intensity of its investment portfolio”.